It's Christmas Time, oh yeah!

Christmas eve we like to pack in a full day.  

We start by decorating gingerbread houses!

 After Gingerbread houses are all trimmed we move on to decorating sugar cookies.

These are our Santa cookies, each kid gets to pick their favorite one they decorated and they leave it for Santa.

 Decorating takes a lot out of us, but we are never too tired for our Christmas Eve Soup.

This year we tried a new recipe, a homemade Tomato soup. It wasn't a favorite, but everyone loved the homemade rolls.  At least they got something for dinner right?

 After dinner (we try to eat early, between 430 and 5) we drove to Larkspur for their drive through Christmas lights park.  It was not as good as the light festival in Spanish Fork, Ut, but we have never found anything that is quite as good as that anyways.  So our expectations were low to begin with.  Our review, Larkspur was overpriced, not as many lights, but fun to do at least one time.

After lights, we come home, open our Christmas eve gift which was pajamas this year. The we snuggle in and watch "The Christmas Story."  After our movie it's time for bed.

 Good night all!

 Santa came!

 Enjoying our spoils.

 The boys couldn't wait to test out their new bikes!

 Matt and Anya got new skis for Christmas this year.  Only they had been using them since November.  I couldn't very well wrap them, so I bought them both picture frames for some things they wanted to frame, and I taped a picture of their skis to the frame.  Haha. They liked it, and they LOVE their skis!

 The boys love Tie Fighters and Storm Troopers.

This is not meant to be racial, just color wheel oriented, but when they play, for a long time, they were either the "black" guys (Tie Fighters) or the "white" guys (Storm Troopers).

I love that my girls till love Legos, and still love to get toys for Christmas.  This is probably the last year for a couple of them.  They are all growing up so fast.  At least we still have the boys to shop toys for.

After presents, we enjoyed an early dinner of a cracker and cheese spread.  This is a tradition Matt's mom started.  She didn't like the formality or work of putting together a big, fancy, Christmas dinner.  So not the way I grew up, but I caught Mom J's vision pretty quickly.  Now we all love what the kids fondly call "snack dinner".  We look forward to it every Christmas!  While eating our snack dinner on  a blanket we watched our Christmas movie "Arthur's Christmas."

We are always sad when Christmas day comes to an end.  But we enjoyed this day together, making memories and just being with each other.

Christmas Market and Santa Express

 The Saturday before Christmas we rode the Royal Gorge Railroad's Santa Express Train.

This was so neat, set up to mimic the Polar Express of course, but it takes you through the famous Colorado Royal Gorge.  So we opted to go during the day, instead of at night, so we could see the Royal Gorge and bridge.

 In front of our Train!

 Our conductor.

He was super cool.  While he was out doing his checks on the engine, he saw us all in matching pajamas.  He quickly called us over (across the employee's only barrier) and said that we just had to get a picture of the front of the train when we are all dressed like this.  I thought that was pretty neat.

We were served hot chocolate, cookies, sang Christmas Carols and played games.

It was a pretty fun train ride.

 Then we arrived to the North Pole!

 This is where we picked up Santa.

 The boys, but especially Hunter, love Santa.

They were already to meat him with their Santa beards on!

 Santa gave each of the kids a handmade bell.  These were so awesome, each one has it's own special ring. No two were alike.

 The kids wrote their Christmas wishes on a special card which they got to hand to Santa.

 Hunter was so excited, and just kept talking to Santa about school, what he liked to do, not even about what he wanted for Christmas.  He just wanted to be with Santa and shoot the breeze.  Santa was so patient and kind.  I loved it.

We stopped under the famous Royal Gorge suspension.  You can pay to walk across, I'm just not sure I am ready for that.  

Frightening!

 Heading home.

 All the cups were biodegradable.

This cup is made out of all natural corn.  Kind of unique.

It was a really fun experience.  I am glad we took the time to do it, when everything is still so magical for the boys!

Miscellaneous

This post is in no particular order.  These are just some random, fun moments I wanted to put in our family journal, but didn't want to give them all their own post.  I love memories like this.  These are the posts I always seem to go to when I need a smile.  I sure do love my kids.

 It's no secret in our house how much Hunter idolizes santa.  Last year, his cousin, Kiana, made him this awesome hat and attachable beard.  He loves it.  Here is, all dressed like Santa, putting presents under the tree.  Pillow tummy to complete the ensemble. 

 Our first snowfall of the year was awesome.  We got almost a foot and a snow day!  Usually we can't build snowmen here, because the snow is too dry.  However, this snow storm brought pretty wet snow, so here is our second ever Colorado Snowman.

 Hannah was here...

I love her little display.

 My boys after their Turkey day celebration at school!

 Because when you roast marshmallows for smores you need to dress the part.

 We went to a hamburger joint in our town called "Crave".

Yes, my friends, that is a hamburger with two donuts instead of buns.  Definitely not an every day thing, but fun to try at least once.

 Matt has been replaced at work.

We love visiting dad's office.

 We drove up to monument ski resort to get Matt and Anya's ski passes printed.  The boys saw the snow and immediately lay down for some good snow angel action.

 One of the Temples for our church (LDS).  Matt and I spent a lovely, snowy evening here. It was perfect.  I sure love my family and I love that I have the opportunity to be with them forever.

Ski season has officially started!

 Matt's truck was at a body shop for almost two weeks, getting all the hail damage from last summer finally fixed.  They gave him this little white sedan rental to use.  The boys loved it!  Everyday after Matt got home from work, they wanted to go sit in the trunk.

 So this is happening in our house.

Not sure how I feel about it yet.

 We love watching this skit/satire show called Studio C.

There is a character that is quite involved with his Lobster Bisque.

Anya finally got to try some!

 For his birthday, Jack got an Army suit and an explorer vest...here he is all dressed to impress.

 Hannah was in her school play.  They performed Charles Dickens "A Christmas Carol".

She had 3 parts, a flower Market girl, a guest at Fred's party, and the Headmistress of Scrooges school.

 She did awesome!

 She also performed with her school orchestra in their winter concert.

Good job Hannah!

We are so proud of you!